A carbon credit is a tradeable certificate that represents one tonne of carbon dioxide (or its equivalent in other greenhouse gases) that’s been prevented from entering the atmosphere, or removed from it once it was already there.
The short version: when a project does something that measurably reduces emissions: a solar installation generating power that would otherwise have come from a coal plant, or a methane capture facility at a landfill. That reduction can be quantified, audited, and turned into credits. Each credit is one tonne of CO₂-equivalent.
To count, those reductions have to be additional. That means they wouldn’t have happened anyway. A solar project that was going to be built regardless wouldn’t qualify; a solar project where carbon revenue tips the financial decision does. The standards that govern carbon credits (Verra’s VCS being the most widely used) exist to enforce this and other quality criteria through independent auditing.
Who buys carbon credits?
Three main groups:
- Corporates offsetting their emissions for voluntary net-zero targets or ESG reporting.
- Compliance buyers that need credits to meet legal carbon obligations. In South Africa, this includes companies subject to the Carbon Tax Act using credits to reduce their tax liability.
- Intermediaries and brokers holding credits as inventory or trading them in secondary markets.
What does this mean for you?
If you own a commercial or industrial solar installation in South Africa, every megawatt-hour you generate displaces grid electricity that would otherwise have come from the SA grid, which still has a high carbon intensity. That displacement creates verifiable emission reductions. Once registered and verified under a standard like Verra VCS, those reductions become credits you can sell.
We handle the registration, verification, and sale on your behalf. You earn a share of the revenue.